Monitoring cardiac events is of clinical importance in the early detection of potentially fatal conditions. Current technologies involve contact sensors (e.g., ECG) the individual must wear constantly. Such a requirement can lead to patient discomfort, dependency, loss of dignity, and further may fail due to a variety of reasons including refusal to wear the monitoring device. Elderly cardiac patients are even more likely to suffer from the adverse effects of continued monitoring. The ability to monitor cardiac function by non-contact means is highly desirable in the healthcare industry. Measurements can be made without disturbing the resting patient, and will be suitable for long observation/monitoring periods and can provide a record of visual imagery of such patients. Video-based methods offer abilities to detect pulsation for long term cardiac function monitoring in a non-contact, unobtrusive manner.
Among cardiac arrhythmias, atrial fibrillation (AF) represents ⅓ of hospital admissions for cardiac-related issues. AF is one of the most common arrhythmias and can cause palpitations, fainting, chest pain, heart failure, and stroke. AF tends to increase with age and often presents with a wide spectrum of symptoms. Presently, there are over 2 million Americans diagnosed with AF. Unobtrusive, non-contact, imaging based methods are needed for monitoring patients for AF such that diagnosis and treatment can be improved. Much work has been done in this regard. The present invention is directed towards this issue.
Accordingly, what is needed in this art are increasingly sophisticated systems and methods for processing video of a subject such that a determination can be made whether that subject is in atrial fibrillation.